Child Migrant Crisis Growing In South Florida

Recently arrived Salvadoran teen Andrea (center; she did not want to give her last name) with her mother Sandra (left) and immigration attorney Jose Teurbe-Tolon.

Credit Jose A. Iglesias / El Nuevo Herald

It’s easy to think the current crisis of undocumented child migrants from Central America affects only the U.S. Southwest. But the problem is very much South Florida’s too.

Central American community leaders are on a campaign to make the region aware of the growing number of migrant minors arriving South Florida – where a third of all undocumented kids in detention are from Honduras – and how to better protect them. They gathered in Little Havana on Wednesday at La Pupusa Factory, a Salvadoran restaurant, where two teenage girls who recently arrived from El Salvador talked about their dangerous, unaccompanied treks through Mexico to the U.S.

Last week Miami-Dade County Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said 300 more newly arrived minors had just registered as students. Almost all are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – three of the poorest and most violent countries in the world.